


Codeine Won't Fix It

by Espereth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 19:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2163006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espereth/pseuds/Espereth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel defies Naomi's order to kill Samandriel. Angst ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Codeine Won't Fix It

_"Kill him, Castiel." Naomi's disembodied voice seemed to echo inside Castiel. Everything was white. He was blinded by light._

_"Kill the traitor." A spinning metal tool came into focus above his right eye, and then Naomi's calm, half-smiling face._

_"Samandriel is _good_ ," Castiel pleaded. He was frozen in place, as the drill came down to meet his eye._

_"Samandriel is a traitor," Naomi said. "And you will kill him, Castiel."_

_"No," he insisted. "I won't do it. I can't."_

_To his amazement, the drill stopped spinning. Silence filled the white laboratory, and Castiel found that he was permitted to rise from the sterile chair he'd been lying on._

_Naomi smiled as he sat up._

_"Fine," she said calmly._

_"Fine?" Castiel blinked in the bright light that blasted him from all directions._

_"Fine, Castiel." Her smile was knowing, and Castiel frowned in confusion._

_"What -"_  
  
***

Kneeling by the side of a dirt road near an abandoned warehouse in Nebraska, Castiel's vision blurred as a warm trickle ran down from his eye. Samandriel was slumped in his arms, his brutalised vessel covered in the familiar blood and filth of one of Crowley's torture chambers.

"Cas, you okay?" The Winchester boys stood over him, their faces worried. They seemed to be looking at his eye. He touched it, looked at his fingertips, and saw blood.

"My vessel must have been damaged," he said. He looked back at Samandriel, feeling dazed. The young man's head was cradled in his arms, and Castiel was bent over him, protective, as though trying to shield him. 

Blood still leaked from the holes in Samandriel's skull where Crowley had drilled into his brain, reducing the angel to a mindless shell. His cheekbone was split under his left eye, and the bright red and white shirt of Alfie's Weiner Hut uniform was soaked with blood and grime.

Cas stroked his friend's hair, feeling the pain and raw terror radiating from him. Castiel had something to do. He knew he had something to do. What was it? 

"How's he doing?" Dean said, crouching beside Castiel.

"Not well." Castiel stared at Samandriel, a sense of awe building in his chest. Samandriel had always thought so highly of humanity. Was that why the teenaged human, Alfie, had assented to Samandriel with unquestioning trust? 

It had taken time for Jimmy to accept Castiel. There'd been tests. Conversations, questions. And, ultimately, a struggle. That struggle weighed heavily on Cas, these days. Of all the terrible things he had done, the devastation he had wrought upon Earth and Heaven, was any single act worse than what he had done to Jimmy Novak? God's law required a vessel's consent. It said nothing about blackmailing a man for that consent with his daughter's life.

Castiel shook his head, struggling to clear it. 

"What's going on, Cas?" Dean said. "Can we get the kid back to his folks?"

"Alfie is gone," Castiel said. He wondered whether this trusting human boy would have agreed to host Samandriel, if he'd known what would happen to him. Whether any vessel would consent, if they knew. In vain, he touched Samandriel's forehead with his fingertips, somehow knowing he would not be able to help him. He was too far gone to heal.

"Gone?" Dean said. "You mean he's dead?"

There was a likeness between Samandriel and his vessel. The angel's faith in human beings; Alfie's trust and loyalty. Cas had recognised something of Samandriel in the human boy's too-young face, in his wide eyes and innocence. Perhaps Alfie had been Samandriel's true vessel, destined to be present for his fate. 

"Confirming it would kill him, in this state," Castiel said. "But no human soul could survive the pain Samandriel endured." 

Castiel could still hear his screams - the crippling agony, wave after wave of it, that had sent Castiel spiralling into himself, helpless and primal. Agony that warped reality. There was a drawback to creating beings as powerful as angels - their capacity for suffering was basically infinite.

"Humans can pull through a lot, Cas," Dean said, looking at his brother. "We're proof of that." He shrugged. "Sorta."

Castiel shook his head. "Hell is intended to break souls. Not destroy them." He looked at Dean. "This is different." 

He lifted Samandriel in his arms. He was as careful as he could be, but even so, Samandriel cried out in fresh agony, tensing in his arms. A curl of smoke rose from the dry grass at the side of the road, and Castiel gasped and swayed on his feet, reeling from the echoed pain. 

"Let me take him, Cas," Dean said. "You try to teleport like this, you're gonna end up in Kazakhstan." Head spinning and pounding, Castiel had no choice but to yield as Dean gently took his friend from his arms.

"C'mon, buddy." The slight frame of the angel's broken vessel was light in Dean's arms. Castiel could only watch, numb, as Dean and Sam laid Samandriel gingerly across the back seat of the Impala. "Easy there," Dean said. "Hold still, kid. Nobody wants to hurt you." 

"He's suffering," Castiel said. He looked at Dean, as though searching for answers in his friend's green eyes. "He's suffering, and I can't help him."

"Welcome to my world," Dean said, and slid into the driver's seat. "Get in front, Cas. Sammy - I'm going to take him back up the highway, find a place to stay."

"I'll make my own way," Sam said, wiping Samandriel's blood on his jeans.

***

Crusted blood flaked from Samandriel's dirty blond hair onto the faded blue pillowcase as Dean lowered the angel gently onto the motel bed. Castiel knew from the waves of second-hand despair that wracked through him that Samandriel's pain hadn't eased. Again he pressed his fingertips to the broken vessel's forehead; and again, it was like trying to heal a stone. There was nothing there. He sank into an armchair, fingertips kneading his throbbing temples. 

Dean offered the angel water, but Samandriel didn't seem to notice; and Dean backed off, as helpless as Castiel. It was impossible to say whether Samandriel was conscious. His eyes were shut, but now and then a shudder rippled through his body, accompanied by moans of pain that tore at Castiel. 

A call to Garth yielded no answers, as they had both known it would. But Castiel had learned that this was another way humans showed concern - performing thoughtful but futile tasks as a gesture of... something. He wasn't sure what. 

Dean pocketed his phone just as a long, rasping noise tore from the back of Samandriel's throat, primitive and full of terror. He frowned, drawing Cas aside. "Kid's in bad shape," he said. "How long's it gonna take, Cas?" Dean raised his eyebrows, challenging him. Castiel knew what was coming. He should have done it back at the warehouse. 

"Have you ever watched a man starve to death, Dean?"

Dean looked back at him, his eyes unreadable. "Weeks, then." 

"Yes." Castiel watched his suffering friend, then closed his eyes as the pounding ache between them intensified. 

_White walls, and the sterile smell of a laboratory. "You know how this goes, Castiel. It all works out my way, in the end," said Naomi. Her tool bored closer to his eye. Closer._

Dean steadied Castiel, a hand on his shoulder. "Cas. You're... bleeding." 

Warmth trickled down the side of his nose again.

"Give me that angel knife," Dean said quietly.

"No, Dean." Castiel walked back to the motel bed. Samandriel's face was grey, his lips drained of colour. The split cheekbone was now laid open to the bone. His body - Alfie's body - was deteriorating.

"Cas, I know you'd sit here with him until he's gone, even if it kills you, too. Penance, and all. But don't you think the poor bastard deserves some dignity? Give me the knife."

"There's no dignity in this," Castiel said. He let the hilt of the angel blade slide into the palm of his hand. "But he's my friend." 

He knelt by the bed, lowered his head to Samandriel's and pressed his lips against the angel's bloodied forehead. Working a hand under his sticky head, he searched Samandriel's face for any sign of awareness.

"It's over, Samandriel," he said. 

The boy's eyes flickered open. "Castiel," he rasped. His eyes were dulled from what he had endured, but he was aware. 

"I'm sorry, my friend." Castiel rested the tip of the angel blade over Alfie's heart.

"Thank you, Cas," Samandriel whispered. Castiel slid the blade quickly home, and golden light filled the room.

***

Sam waved his thanks to the trucker who'd dropped him off down the highway, about thirty miles southeast of Omaha. He was going to check his phone for Dean's text with the motel's address, but as it turned out, he didn't need to.

A brilliant beam of light streamed up into the night sky, barely a mile off the highway. He covered his eyes with a hand until it faded, then made for its source. Samandriel was dead.

Sam opened the door of the motel room to darkness. He almost thought he'd got the wrong one, until he saw the smallish body on the bed, covered with a sheet, and the two men huddled on the floor by the bedside. 

A pang of something - not quite jealousy, but something like it - hit Sam. Castiel was cradled in Dean's arms, clutching the hilt of the bloodstained angel blade in his right hand. His head rested on Dean's chest. One of Dean's hands was in his hair, the other on his back, holding tightly to the fabric of his trenchcoat. 

"All done, Cas," Dean murmured. "I'm so sorry."

They had something, Sam thought. Not stronger than blood, but different. He'd never known what it was, and he knew he never would.

***

_Castiel stared insensibly at Naomi across her desk. "What - what did I just do?"_

_"You did what I ordered you to," Naomi said, with a cold smile. "And you'll continue to do so. I told you, Castiel. It all goes my way, in the end."_


End file.
